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| Services to Specific Populations |
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New York City's Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center will now allow uninsured artists to paint, dance, or sing to defray their medical bills. The Lincoln Art Exchange gives artists the opportunity to earn health credits for every creative service they perform. The credits can be used to offset the cost of doctor's visits, lab tests, dental care, and prescriptions.
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| Healthcare Administration |
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The new Innovation Center at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is training "innovation advisers" across the nation in an effort to deliver better health-care services and reduce costs. After receiving training, the advisers — which include medical professionals, hospital executives, and academic experts — work on projects in their home institutions. Current projects address the reduction of medication errors, obesity, and the creation of new positions to coordinate patient care.
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| Public Safety |
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The New York City Police Department is developing scanning technology to detect the presence of firearms that may be hidden on criminal suspects. The scanner, which will be mounted on a van, sends infrared rays that immediately reveal whether a gun is present. Currently, the range of the device is only three to four feet, but officials hope that the distance will increase. The city has worked with the U.S. Defense Department to develop the technology.
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| Economic and Community Development |
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Increasingly, metropolitan areas are creating or bolstering their food policies, recognizing the need to ensure that healthful and affordable foodstuffs are available for residents. Baltimore fashioned a food policy initiative in 2009, which involves multiple city departments and an advisory group of over 30 organizations. Priorities included the reduction of "food deserts" and the support of projects that allow low-income residents to order groceries online and pick them up at the local library. New York and San Francisco have also created their own food policy initiatives, and mayors across the U.S. have met to launch a food policy task force.
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| Electoral Politics and Civic Engagement |
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Massachusetts now allows municipalities to decide whether to convene board or committee meetings remotely using video and audio technology. Several restrictions to the practice apply. First, adoption of remote participation must be approved by the city or town's chief executive officer, or by majority vote in the cases of state, county, and regional bodies. Second, an officer must deem it to be unreasonably difficult for a member to be physically present. Advocates of the new policy tout that the change reflects modernity while ensuring greater participation. Critics observe that the policy change may curb leadership responsibility and lead to less productive meetings.
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| Education and Diversity |
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Two New Jersey schools are using John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men to bring together students from opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. Two sets of eighth graders, one from a more privileged area and one from a poorer district, are reading the novel together and communicating with each other via Skype, Wikispaces, and in-person school visits. The themes of Steinbeck's classic, and this unique inter-school collaboration, have given the students a greater understanding of each other's different communities and perceptions.
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| Can Fiscal Sanity Be Mandated? |
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Looking to address the underlying causes of California’s massive $28 billion deficit, two good-government groups are attempting to put what they call the Government Performance and Accountability Act (GPAA) on the November ballot. The GPAA has the potential to provide a roadmap to sustainability through enhanced transparency, accountability, and common sense.
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| How to Keep Criminals Out of Jail |
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Newark Mayor Cory Booker is using a performance-based approach to keep his city safer by reducing criminal recidivism. The Prisoner Reentry Initiative takes a "work first" approach to recidivism, under the theory that finding a job fast and staying employed are the best ways to avoid a return to jail.
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| Putting Education Data to Work |
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While schools are collecting mountains of information on their students, a new study from the Data Quality Campaign finds that most states aren't sharing what they collect with parents, policymakers, principals, or teachers. Now that the data is available, there needs to be a shift from collection to using the data to boost performance.
Newsletter produced by: Jessica Engelman, editor; Brendan St. Amant, researcher and writer.
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About the Ash Center
The Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation advances excellence in governance and strengthens democratic institutions worldwide. Through its research, education, international programs, and government innovations awards, the Center fosters creative and effective problem solving and serves as a catalyst for addressing many of the most pressing needs of the world's citizens. The Ford Foundation is a founding donor of the Center. Additional information about the Ash Center is available at http://ash.harvard.edu.
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